The Peace Brigades International-Indonesia Project is looking for volunteers with English language skills to assist human rights defenders.

Many of the human rights defenders they work with speak little to no English, but it is an important skill for them to have to help them engage and advocate at the international level, including within Asia.

Toward this end, PBI-Indonesia is developing a Basic English Course for human rights defenders.

The course will be developed by a professional teacher and conducted online through weekly sessions, initially for 12 weeks. To help the defenders practice their English and consolidate their learning, the project would also like to pair the human rights defenders with volunteer language buddies.

As a language buddy, you would be asked to commit to connecting once or twice a week with your buddy, ideally for the 12-week duration of the course.

In your sessions, you would help your buddy practice basic conversation and language skills. Sessions should be between 15-30 minutes in length and could be held via WhatsApp / Signal or another medium, either written (via a messaging app), or spoken (via video calls).

PBI-Indonesia would also provide tips and support to help you structure the sessions, linking you to useful materials or topics relevant to what is covered in class.

As a language buddy, you would also have the opportunity to learn more about the work of human rights defenders in Indonesia and you may find you are able to help support their activism in other ways too.

If you are interested, please contact PBI-USA at jorge@pbiusa.org and we can put you in touch with PBI-Indonesia.

About the PBI-Indonesia Project

From 1999-2011, Peace Brigades International provided protective accompaniment and participatory peace education to human rights defenders in Papua, Aceh, Flores, West Timor, and Jakarta.

Following extended discussions with civil society organizations and other stakeholders, PBI began a new Indonesia Project in 2014.

The project collaborates with the Institute of Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM) to conduct extended trainings for human rights defenders, who are strengthening their skills through a combination of classroom activities, building advocacy and protection networks at the national level, and conducting field research.